Transmission Of Xiangxi Culture In The Border Town Translated By Gladys Yang:an Analysis In Light Of Context Theory

There has always been a complicated relationship between linguistic theories and translation studies. Although linguistics-oriented translation studies mainly prevailed in the middle of1950s to the middle of1980s, the influence of linguistics has never stopped. In particular, with the rise of systemic functional grammar represented by M.A.K. Halliday, it seems that linguistics is ready for a comeback. As one of the research focuses of functional school, context theory, because of its social and cultural attributes, has always been popular among the scholars of translation studies.Under the framework of context theory, this thesis aims to carry out a comprehensive analysis on The Border Town, translated by Gladys Yang from Shen Congwen’s novel Biancheng, through the angle of cultural transmission, thus discussing her translation strategy and cultural transmission strategy on this novel.Based on M.A.K. Halliday’s elaboration on context theory and its application to translation studies carried out by Basil Hatim and Ian Mason, the thesis will be discussed from two aspects. On the one hand, it will analyze the dialogues between characters in The Border Town from the perspective of situational context, discussing how she has treated the features of language varieties reflected in the dialogues. On the other hand, it will discuss about the translation of other cultural elements in the novel from the perspective of cultural context so as to see her cultural transmission strategy adopted for the translation. From the above analysis, two conclusions will be drawn for the thesis:firstly, through a systematic analysis on Gladys Yang’s translation under the framework of context theory, it proves that she has flexibly handled the features of language varieties reflected in the dialogues between characters and the rich Xiangxi culture contained in the novel; secondly, it shows that when translating the novel, she has adopted such cultural transmission strategy as to introduce Xiangxi culture to the foreign readers as much as possible.